


Study Break

by grandpajumpersandeyelashes



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Competition, F/F, F/M, M/M, Quidditch, overly competitive Rick and Jem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-13 02:09:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4503801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grandpajumpersandeyelashes/pseuds/grandpajumpersandeyelashes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Kieren tries to prepare for the impending OWL exams and Simon for his NEWTs, Rick and Jem bicker over who the best Quidditch player is, dragging the entire gang along with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Study Break

**Author's Note:**

> This is completely dedicated to my tumblr friend rckmacy who helped me out by bouncing ideas with me. Thanks so much for all the help (and sorry this took longer than I expected to write!)

Since the Battle of Hogwarts, there were still houses, but they weren’t nearly as important as they were in the past. There was no hatred between houses, even amongst the bravest of Gryffindors and the most cunning of Slytherins.

Now, it wasn’t so odd to see a table of mixed houses sitting together at meals or having a laugh on the lawn. So it was no surprise when one of the old Hufflepuff tables became the home of just two Hufflepuffs, two of their Ravenclaw friends, one of their best friend and little sister who were in Gryffindor, and the little sister’s best friend from Slytherin.

It was a mix that frankly, no one saw coming. Not only did they vary in their houses, but they were from various years as well. The eldest among them was a single seventh year, a Ravenclaw head boy; the youngest, two first years from Gryffindor and Slytherin. The the middle were two sixth years and two fifth years. 

The friendships each had a strange start to them. Kieren and Jem, of course were brother and sister. Amy befriended Kieren when she ran into him moping around the grounds one day when he was homesick his first year, her second. Rick became quick friends with Ren on the day that Rick was making a potion for the class and Kieren saved his grade with a well timed cough that suggested the correct ingredients.

Philip and Amy started dating at the Yule Ball when they went together in their fifth year, though they had a strange mutual interest since third. Amy and Simon had become friends before the pair had started dating, inevitably making Philip jealous of Amy’s “beau” as she called him, until he came to the realization that Simon only had eyes for Kieren, the younger Ravenclaw Amy had introduced to him briefly in the past.

Jem and Lisa had become friends on the way to Hogwarts their first year. Since Jem already knew several of Kieren’s magical friends, she introduced her friend to them in the brief moments that they met outside the Great Hall before her sorting. Kieren had whispered to her who to make friends with no matter which house she was in, pointing to all of his friends, precisely how she and Rick became friends.

Finally, Kieren’s distress at Rick’s transfer to Durmstrang lead he and Simon to become much closer when he sought out his house’s prefect. In reality, when he entered the Ravenclaw’s seventh year bedroom, he had expected to sit down and talk out the breakup (if you could call it that), but ended up kissing him, starting their own relationship.

Of course, that made things uncomfortable for some parties when Rick returned, apparently ineligible for the foreign exchange program in some way. It had taken them a while, but it eventually worked itself out when, between the three of them, they worked it out and started seeing each other.

Rick’s return was perfectly timed, as the Gryffindor quidditch team was having to have mid-season re-try outs because they were simply doing that poorly. Quidditch was one thing that Rick was incredible at. It was the one thing his father had instilled on him that he actually enjoyed. It helped that he excelled at it, but his competitive spirit helped as well.

Jem had gone to every match,whether or not her own house was playing. Kieren could see in her eyes how much she had fallen in love with the game that she had grown up hearing vague stories about. Since Sue was a squib though, and Steve a muggle, they really hadn’t known much of the magical world, just tiny bits and pieces their other bestowed on them when Kieren got his Hogwarts letter. Kieren knew of her love for the game, and enlisted Rick to help her learn the game enough to try out.

She made the team as a beater after Rick had spent many evenings flying on the pitch with her and drilling her on the game. Simon had teased Rick that if he was as dedicated to his studies as he was to teaching Quidditch, he might not be in such a crunch to make the marks for his OWLS he would need for NEWT classes to be an auror. After some bickering between the two of them (Kieren tried to remind himself that their bickering was how they showed they loved each other), Kieren eventually started pushing Rick out of the Ravenclaw common room and walked him back to Gryffindor for the night.

Rick had become great friends with Jem as they were now teammates. If Kieren didn’t know any better, he would have assumed they had grown up together, perhaps as brother and sister. He made that remark to Amy one day who only giggled and told him “Maybe sister-in-law...”, which earned a blush matching the crimson of the sweater he stole from Rick.

Both of them were incredibly competitive, and often would be caught arguing over who was a better player and who could beat who at a one-on-one match. After they realized that Quidditch was perhaps not the simplest game to play without a team, they began trying to figure out how to settle their dispute.

It was a late spring morning when they two of them came running out to where the group sat in the shade (near the safe end) of the whomping willow studying. Kieren was being quizzed on history of magic by Lisa (whose father was a historian that had taught her almost NEWT levels already) and Philip while Simon went over some of his NEWT muggle studies information with Amy.

“We’ve finally decided!” Jem exclaimed as she reached the group just a bit ahead of Rick. “We know how to settle who is the better Quidditch player!”

“You know,” Kieren said to the rest of the group, “I hate to imagine what kind of competitions they have in Gryffindor tower when we aren’t over there to stop them...”

“Can it, Walker.” Rick laughed, bumping his shoulder with his knee. “You lot are rubbish at Quidditch, Lisa aside of course, even though we did kick Slytherin’s ass this year...” his voice trailed off into a laughing yelp when Lisa swatted him with Kieren’s textbook. “If we play of teams made up of you all, we’ll be able to see who can overcome that and win the game.”

Simon sighed as he gestured to all the open books around them. “You know, some of us, including you, Rick, have OWLs and NEWTs to prepare for.”

“Maybe you could both use a bit of a break though, don’t you think?” Amy offered. “You have been studying all morning and afternoon, even during lunch. A break might help out, even if you Ravenclaws like this sort of thing.”

Rick leaned down and kissed Amy’s cheek. “The beautiful genius has spoken, time for a break from studying.”

“These exams determine what jobs I can get, Rick. They determine what you and Kier can do too, for classes the next couple of years too.” Simon tried to reason. “Maybe you should take a break from taking a break and study with us for a bit. Can’t be an auror with bad marks, Rick.”

This time, Philip took the moment to interrupt, “Actually, Rick is better at DADA than me, he knows my 6th year spells better than me, and that’s really what’s important for aurors.”

“Lippy, I’d kiss you too, ‘cept I wouldn’t want to steal you from your girlfriend.” Rick joked, winking at Amy playfully. “See, I’m fine, and so are both of you. Wouldn’t be in the brainiac house if you weren’t, now would you?”

“Houses aren’t divided like that, Rick.” Lisa spoke up now. “My dad’s a Ravenclaw, he says they’re smart, but there’s different kinds of smart,you know?”

“Yeah, like Kier is art-smart and emotional-smart, he can read people well.” Jem added, remembering all the research she did on the houses the summer she found out she would attend Hogwarts as well. “Simon’s got word-smarts and people-smarts.”

“They’ll both be perfectly fine though. Shite, Simon’s already all but got the muggle-studies job here next year. Don’t think he’ll be able to fuck up that bad, considering he’s muggle-born on top of it all.” Rick pointed out. “And Ren’s just got to do well in charms for his art, and we all know that’s his best class. Have you even studied charms?” Kierne shook his head. “See, you’re comfortable with it. And you kick my arse in every other subject anyways.”

Kieren sighed, looking at Simon. “Maybe a break would be nice for a little bit. He’s got a point about you practically having the job already.”

Simon looked around, the head boy not wanting to look so easily swayed by his fifth-year boyfriends, but eventually shut his books before sending his and Kieren’s things up to Ravenclaw tower. “Fine, but Rick studies with us for the same amount of time that the game takes as soon as we’re done.”

Rick smirked before kissing each of them on the cheek. “That’s a deal.”

Picking teams was quite the ordeal, as Kieren pointed out he was Jem’s brother but Rick’s boyfriend so he simply couldn’t pick a side to be more loyal to. Simon tried to get out of it using a similar excuse (boyfriend and boyfriend’s sister), but as soon as he pointed that out, they simply agreed that they’d separate the two of them.

Each Rick and Jem took the position they were not used to, seeker, before picking who else would be on their teams. Lisa (normally a seeker herself) was designated to be the referee since they couldn’t have uneven teams, with Kieren being Jem’s chaser and Philip her keeper, while Simon would be Rick’s keeper and Amy his chaser.

After a few laughably awful moments of each of the non-Quidditch players getting accustomed to brooms they rarely used, Lisa let out the snitch and a quaffle. Jem and Rick each groaned a bit at their teammates as they flew slowly around, Philip especially trying to stay as close to the ground as possible.

As they soared above the rest of the group, eyes peeled for the snitch, Jem and Rick couldn’t help but laugh. “They are pretty shit at this, aren’t they?” Jem said as Kieren nearly fell off his broom trying to throw the quaffle.

“Looks like you got the athletic ability in the family, we’ll say that.” Rick chuckled. “Simon isn’t half bad, if he were a little looser he’d be a decent keeper.”

Jem shrugged, “Well, look what he’s up against.”

“Fair enough.” he agreed, grinning. “Looks like Amy is going to help Philip fly instead of trying to score on him.” he groaned. “Throw the quaffle, Amy!” he shouted, only to be waved off by her before she tossed the ball to Kieren. “Christ...”

“Not like Kier’s going to score anyways.” Jem rolled her eyes.

“Oi!” Lisa yelled from where she was flying around near the others. “Want to get that snitch some time soon? It’s pretty obvious this is going to be decided by the catch.”

The two Gryffindors shared a laugh before Jem suddenly darted downwards. Rick squinted for a moment before taking off at a breakneck speed after her. He hadn’t seen the golden glint, but he figured that if she had it wasn’t a bad idea to follow after until he did.

When she pulled out of her dive, Jem was laughing. “Can’t believe you fell for that!” she laughed, revealing she hadn’t seen anything either.

Rick waved her off before circling upwards again. When he reached the altitude he had been at before, he saw it. It seemed that Jem, who had been closer to the ground, had seen it at the same moment as well. They both took off at the same time, their trajectories going straight for each other at the point where the snitch taunted them as it hovered in place.

They probably should have pulled out of their respective maneuvers sooner, but neither wanted to be the first. With just moments to spare, they peeled off in the same direction, though the snitch darted the opposite way. They each turned around before flying side by side (and shoving with elbows just a bit) towards their goal.

All action below them had stopped as the other four players gawked at the display above. “Oh for fuck’s sake, you’re supposed to at least try to score!” Lisa told them, exasperated.

Neck-in-neck, both of them reached out as far as they could to grab the flying orb. “You’ve got to let me have it, I’ll never live it down with Ren if his little sister beat me. And you know Si will take his side.” Rick pleaded as they each had moments that they brushed their fingers against the wings.

“And you don’t think I’m trying to impress Lisa?” Jem scoffed, causing Rick to falter for just a half second. “Christ, you really are dense, aren’t you?” she laughed, letting him regain the small amount of ground he lost. “Both grab it at the same time? No one has to live with the embarrassment?” she offered.

Rick grinned. “3...” he began counting. “2...”

“One!” Jem shouted, wrapping her fingers around the ball before diving away, all before Rick could process what was happening.

Kieren and Philip cheered as she returned to them, the snitch in hand. Rick of course was naturally pouting the rest of the day after losing, but it didn’t seem like Kieren or Simon would give him a terribly hard time about it. 

Rick made good on his promise of studying after the match, even if some of that time was just spent cuddling up against Simon as he mumbled what he read into Rick’s ear. Sure, Rick wasn’t tested on that subject, but at least he was learning something. Kieren eventually made him study their OWL level material, which he was surprised to realize he knew most of already, even if he needed a few reminders here and there.

“Come on, it’s nearly curfew, and I’ve been studying nearly three times as long as I promised, can I please go back to my bed now?” Rick eventually complained enough when Kieren pulled out his transfiguration cards.

“He has been pretty good this evening.” Simon shrugged. “Good night, Rick.” he told him before giving him a quick kiss.

“Night.” Rick smiled, giving Kieren a kiss as well. “See you two in the morning.” he yawned, exiting the Ravenclaw’s dormitories.

On his trek back to his own part of the castle, he saw a familiar ponytail swishing in front of him, obviously having come from the Slytherin common room. “Walker!” he called out, startling her briefly before she realized it was him and gave him a shit eating grin.

“Sorry, we never said playing dirty was illegal.” Jem laughed approaching the Fat Lady. “Dragon’s Breath.” she said to let them in.

“I was just going to say, maybe more of your Slytherin girlfriend is rubbing off on you than her lipstick...” he grinned before making his escape up the boy’s staircase, leaving Jem to match the decorations on the wall while she scrubbed at her lips with the sleeve of her robe.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so now that this is finished, I'm hoping to be able to get back to Somewhere In Neverland (which I was going to abbreviate before I realized I would be saying I'd be going back to SIN... lol anyways...). However, I'm playing with the idea of doing a full Hogwarts AU (maybe a chapter per year at hogwarts or so) with all these dorks, so if you're interested maybe shoot me a comment to let me know? Thanks as always for the read, you guys are incredible!


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